Breaking the Cycle

I have been thinking a lot lately about how different my children's childhood has been compared to mine and Marty's. When Marty and I became parents, we didn't have a clue what we were doing (sometimes we still don't feel like we have a clue). When Alex was a baby, we just loved on him and enjoyed him (like he was my little dress up doll). As he got older, we realized that we were responsible for him and needed to actively shape the direction that he was headed. Our earliest parenting idea was to do the opposite of what our parents did. Neither one of us had the best childhood, so we figured that we would try to break the cycle. When Scott came, we stayed with the same program. I think so far we have done a pretty good job of raising our boys. I would like to say that I know what I am doing and am not overprotective, but that is not true. When you grow up like I did, you tend to be hyper vigilant with your own kids. As the boys have gotten older, I have really worked at letting go of my fears for their safety. This means I let them get Swiss army knives, go on hikes, ride their bikes off jumps, go on youth retreats (to foreign countries), play football, etc. I like the quote on fear that I found in my book club book (The Bathtub is Overflowing but I Feel Drained). Here it is: "I have to realize that I cannot control my children's safety. Not by my prayers, not by my worries, and certainly not by my fears." I need to constantly realize that my children belong to the Lord, and he just entrusted them to me.

I still can't help myself from the momism's though: be careful, that knife is sharp, don't crack your head open, no broken bones, etc. I guess they will just have to put up with it, since I love them so much.

The Twin

Well, we are now into round two of the Mini's. I wondered if I should call this entry "The Attack of the Clones" or "Mini Twin Power Activate". I decided that I am going to call the Mini's "The Twins" (fraternal of course).

This is the original Mini that we were supposed to be able to just pick up and drive. As you can see, by the fact that the motor is not in the car, that did not happen. Instead, we are now the proud owners of two Mini's. It is a long story, so I will not bore you with the details. Marty thinks God is just rewarding him for being patient. I am thinking, "Hey, I only agreed to one Mini". At least my man is happy.

I thought this was funny. I guess we will have to get a mini dog and name him rover, so he can protect Marty's car.



Is this a snake? No, it is the wiring harness for the Mini. Marty is confident that he knows where everything attaches to. I would be overwhelmed, but if you look at his face, he seems quite pleased with himself.

Here is my man standing proud next to his Mini. I am sure that he will get it running soon, since he is a great mechanic. There is nothing more sexy than a man happy about his car!

Stay tuned for more updates.

Mini Mania

Last year we were borrowing a friend's classic Mini Cooper while our car was getting fixed. Little did I know then how that would change our lives. We all enjoyed riding around in the Mini (some people called it the "clown car") so much that we thought it would be neat to get one. Marty had a friend that restored Mini's and offered him a really good deal on one. After much prayer and looking over finances, we decided to get one. We were supposed to get the insides of a green Mini and the outsides of a red Mini, which together would be our Mini. Without going into details, the deal got changed and now we are getting both Mini's.


So... a few weekends ago, Marty, Scott, and Marty's friend were off to get the red Mini.


They decided that it would be a good idea to put the Mini into the back of the pick-up truck. So, they lifted the Mini into the truck and drove it to our house. Can you imagine what the Germans must have been thinking? "Crazy Americans!"









When they got it to our house, they were trying to get the Mini out of the truck, but it kept getting stuck on the wheel bumps in the bed of the truck. Every time they would get some forward momemtum, it would get stuck there and progress would stop. Luckily for them, some of our German neighbors was walking by and offered to help. With the extra hands, they were able to get the Mini off the truck in one piece.




Here is Marty's "baby". He is very excited about it and so are the boys.












I don't know if you can see it on the back or not, but it came with a nickname "Red Hot". The previous owner said it is literally red hot. He had wired the stereo speakers wrong and the inside of the car actually caught fire. I am sure Marty wishes that the guy wouldn't have said that story in front of me.







How would you like to sit in here and take a drive?












Is it just me, or is something missing?













Oh, here it is. I think it is in the wrong place.


Marty's friend is making a Mini on "steroids" so he has a lot of extra parts that he doesn't need. For $500 he gave Marty everything he doesn't need, which happens to be everything Marty needs for his mini. So basically, we got a Mini for $500. When they are both done, we will have 2 Mini's for the price of one. The plan is to make the red one a sporty Mini and the other one more traditional.


Mini Mania will obviously continue since it takes a while to restore old cars. Pray for me :)

New to blogging

I am not much of a writer or journaler, but I thought that I would give this blogging thing a try. I figure that it will give me the opportunity to share my thoughts on things that are random in my head. Things that when I ask my husband what he thinks about it, he usually replies with "I don't know, I never thought about it". So anyway, bear with me and hopefully we can find fun stuff to talk about.